Just Ask Mary Lou

How do you feel about being dubbed the “Oprah of marketing?”
Who wouldn’t want to be compared in any way at all to Oprah? It isn’t that I am anywhere in her stratosphere, but that at Just Ask a Woman, we live the life of asking women personal questions in an effort to help corporate America do well for them. So, listening and giving back — that’s what we try to do.

What’s Talk-TV? How do you use it?
It’s the way we listen differently. We don’t do traditional “focus groups,” which generally get you traditional answers. Our format puts female customers where they belong: front and center on stage. There are no two-way mirrors or hidden rooms. Everything is as it should be — out in the open. The clients, the cameras — everything is within their sight so that they can relax and open up. And have fun! Our Just Ask a Woman “LIVE” sessions are meant to help us and our clients power-listen — that is, listen more deeply without the backroom distractions of sending e-mails, taking calls and talking, which unfortunately substitutes for listening in traditional research.

What’s the one thing you’d like to tell retailers of any stripe?
Women know that they are powerful but they don’t feel that you treat them that way. [Retailers] don’t listen and [they] infuriate women with their declining customer service, confusing store layouts and policies that put more of the burden on them when it comes to refunds and correcting their mistakes.

As an “American Inventor” judge, do you have any advice to share?
The biggest eye opener to me was the inability of some inventors to listen to or accept the truth. I guess they expect rejection as part of the process, so criticism rolls off their backs. But helpful advice, which we gave tons of off-camera, was sometimes disregarded when it could have saved some inventors lots of money and heartache.

Any humorous behind-the-scenes moments?
Most of them happened right on camera, but when I – deservedly — called one of the other judges an “***hole” off-camera, that made [it into] the opening show. Watching in Florida, my 82-year-old Mom leaned over to my 88-year-old Dad and said, “Ray, did Mary Lou actually just call that guy an ***hole on national television?”

What’s on the bedside stand?
I listen to Oprah. Just finished “Eat, Pray, Love” and I’m now reading “Love in the Time of Cholera.”

Music on the CD or iPod?
Patty Griffin. I love her!

What’s a little-known fact about yourself?
I haven’t given up on Broadway.